In this new post to his blog Anthony Ferrara responds to some of the recent news about PHP standards being up for voting (PSR-1 and PSR-2). He has an issue with how they were created, though, and notes that the current PSR process doesn't encourage open standards.

There has been a lot of traction lately on the topic of the PSR "PHP Framework Interoperability Group". They are introducing two new proposed standards: PSR-1and PSR-2, both dealing with code formatting standards. [...] I have read both, and actually agree and think they are quite good. However, there's a deeper problem. Open Standards is something that the internet was built upon. From HTTP, E-Mail and HTML to ECMA Script (JavaScript), OAuth and JSON, open standards are everywhere. The problem with the entire PSR process is that it is not designed to produce open standards.

He describes an "open standard" and points to this RFC as an example of the open process they should result from. He talks about the importance of the process and how having more people reviewing and contributing their ideas could help find issues in the proposal. He issues a "call to the PSR team" to adopt this practice, allowing a more open flow to the ideas that are being proposed.

Note that I'm not asking to open the vote to anyone else. I'm not saying that standards should be approved by everyone in the community. There should still be a standards body that makes the final decision. But they should make that decision based on community input. They should actively look for and encourage open discussion prior to voting.